Can a piece of theater still be considered underrated if it has won the Pulitzer Prize for drama and the Tony Award for Best Play? I mean, that's a pretty serious amount of acclaim, but if it's not a part of the culture lexicon like "Cats" or "Hamilton," then what are we even doing here?
I've been a fan of David Auburn's play "Proof" since college and have always thought it deserved to be one of the biggest pieces of theater of this generation, which, I suppose in some ways it is. For people unfamiliar with the show, it's one of the most elegant portrayals of the complexity of the human mind as it filters its way through mental illness, grief and genius. "Proof" has been an American theatrical masterpiece for decades, and now with The Greenhouse Cabaret's new production, the Pacific Northwest has the chance to see what the fuss is all about.
Built around only four characters, Auburn's gorgeous writing builds a ephemeral bridge between the concrete answers of mathematics with the known unknowns we find ourselves existing besides every day as human beings. Our central character is Catherine, played by the wonderful Ramya Hipp, an outwardly difficult woman who has spent the last few years taking care of her father, Robert (the always entertaining Richard Choate), a genius mathematician slowly succumbing to mental illness. After his death, Catherine is pulled out of her solitary days by her older sister, Claire, (a perfectly calibrated Natalie Curtis) who wants Catherine to sell their father's house and move to New York to be closer to her sister and by Hal (Daniel Witty, supplying much needed levity), one of her father's proteges who is searching through Robert's notes for a possible mathematical proof that would cement the late genius' legacy forever.
Watching these four characters dance between each other as they struggle with their own limitations as people, their new and bottomless reserves of self-loathing and doubt, their fear of their own minds and the crippling anxiety born from unrealized futures and unmet expectations is a masterclass in tension and release. Catherine's fear that she might have not only inherited her father's genius, but his sickness as well, is a complicated and nuanced subtext to play with. Hipp layers in such heartbreaking vulnerability to her somewhat cold exterior that it's near impossible not to hope desperately that she finds a happy ending.
Director Joshua Curtis, in his directorial debut, has done an amazing job staging this production. David Auburn's script doesn't have a wasted moment. Every scene, every line exists to further character and create dramatic stakes that hold the audience in rapt silence. Curtis' instinct for how to translate that to The Greenhouse Cabaret are spot on."
'Proof"' is a stripped-down drama that doesn't rely on gimmicks or set changes to keep your attention," says Curtis. "Rather, it's all about the pacing and the award-winning writing that is used to keep the audience's attention. This puts a large amount of pressure on the actors to stay locked in throughout the entire production, as the audience never lets them out of their grasp."
Even just watching a rehearsal with no costumes and a bare minimum of lighting, I was reminded not only of how brilliant "Proof" is as a piece of art, but how daringly staged and fearlessly performed theater in a beautiful and intimate environment (like The Greenhouse Cabaret) can transport you right outside yourself, into the skin and bones of people we've never met. If film is a machine for empathy, then live theater is a repository of human emotion.
If you're new to the Bend theater scene, "Proof" is a perfect place to start. And if you're already a fan of the local arts, then I'm assuming you already have your tickets. The Greenhouse Cabaret's founder John Kish has considerably upped the quality of local theater since the Cabaret's opening in the winter of 2021, and "Proof," the seventh production from Kish and his many Greenhouse collaborators, is evidence that the theatrical art scene is thriving again after almost being extinguished during the darkest days of COVID.
Live theater is such a treat that so many of us take for granted and, if it's something you've avoided for one reason or another, "Proof" is one of those shows that (I apologize for this) proves the inherent power that shared experiences still carry in the modern world. Our screens have made us more solitary than we really take responsibility for, and having art created for us in a two-hour burst of singular moments that will never be repeated exactly the same way is a bona fide miracle. Go to theater. Grow as a person. Let's do this.
